(1S,2S)-1-alkoxycarbonyl-2-vinylcyclopropanecarboxylic acid is an intermediate that is useful for the production of various types of HCV NS3 protease inhibitors that are currently under development as therapeutic agents for hepatitis C. Non Patent Document 1 describes a method of hydrolyzing dimethyl 2-vinylcyclopropane-1,1-dicarboxylate with an enzyme to obtain (1S,2S)-1-methoxycarbonyl-2-vinylcyclopropanecarboxylic acid. In this method, however, the optical selectivity of the enzyme has been insufficient, and the optical purity of the obtained (1S,2S)-1-methoxycarbonyl-2-vinylcyclopropanecarboxylic acid has been 90% e.e. Thus, this method has been unsuitable as an industrial method for producing an intermediate for medicaments.
The genome sequence of Bacillus subtilis ATCC23857 has been known, and the amino acid sequence of para-nitrobenzyl esterase derived from the Bacillus subtilis ATCC23857 (which may be hereinafter referred to as “PNBE23857”) has been registered under GenBank Accession No. ZP_03593235.